Brian Eno was my God, he could do nothing wrong, I hung on to his every word. I even got a job working for one of his production companies, I finally got to meet "my God" I suppose that he was the single, most influential person in my musical life, ever, full stop. However, as we grow older, we become more confident in our own endeavors, and no longer rely on the influences and confirmations of others as much as before, we hopefully, create our own unique and individual works, although influences never leave us, despite what we'd sometimes like to think, we all have them. I bought "Brian Eno, A Year" back in the 90's and hungrily devoured every word, last night I got it off the shelf and decided to re-read it, it actually really annoyed me, it came across as being very self righteous, arrogant to the extreme, and very, very smug. Also, does he ever switch off ? I can imagine him walking around the supermarket theorizing to his daughters about the inherent significance of the way the items are placed on the shelf, it seems as though he's always questioning things that actually don't need to be questioned. At the time I agreed with him 100% about everything, but now I almost totally disagree with him about most things. he is living in a world that is tinted with the view of a successful "rock star" he has the pile in the country, money, and a very comfortable life style, not that there's anything wrong with that in itself, but when you have that you tend to look at the world through rose tinted spectacles. One passage in "A Year" particularly amuses me.......

"In health club: Bjork, Elvis Costello and my neighbor Tom, Tom and I talked in the sauna about land mines in Angola (he was just filming there)

There is a somewhat patronizing and self aggrandizing attitude in a lot of this book that I never noticed first time around, or didn't want to notice.
I'm afraid that my attitude to aid giving hasn't changed, whereas Brian's has, I think that tells me more about where both of us are in this respect. But I just see it as making oneself feel less guilty about our past, and present, empirical capitalism.
All I'm trying to say here is that time can change our perspective on people, things, and happenings so drastically, that we no longer recognize the person we once were, some poeple try and hold on to things so much that it stops them from moving forward. Change and adapt, artistically this is very important, we have to embrace change, not only in ourselves, but externally as well, and our opinions and views must change, but changes in our personal attitudes can be viewed by some as a sort of betrayal of integrity, I couldn't disagree more with that viewpoint.
I still Regard Mr E as being a God, and I always will do, but our influences can be a double edged sword, what can be seen as inspiration, can also be regarded as a creative straight jacket, and can create prejudice and inverted snobbery.

The main error a lot of people make: they think by knowing an artists work they know the artists personality.
I´m very impressed by some peoples work and skills, one of them being Mr. Eno as well. But I´m always aware of the fact that I know nothing relevant about the personality, the human being behind that. I feel comfortable with certain aspects of the outlet and what it reflects from the person behind that. But I always keep in mind that this reflection is just a very very little glow of the artists complete persona.

Cheers
Frank_________________--
How may I be of disservice?
---
Music for conscious listening @ http://www.fmdelight.de/

The main error a lot of people make: they think by knowing an artists work they know the artists personality.
I´m very impressed by some peoples work and skills, one of them being Mr. Eno as well. But I´m always aware of the fact that I know nothing relevant about the personality, the human being behind that. I feel comfortable with certain aspects of the outlet and what it reflects from the person behind that. But I always keep in mind that this reflection is just a very very little glow of the artists complete persona.

Cheers
Frank

Yes, I wonder about saying "never confuse the artist with the work" I'm not sure ?
Eno has always been approachable, I met him, and he seemed very amiable, and so called "down to earth" But that diary, I think maybe, you can't take it too literally, I know Eno isn't averse to using a bit of "post production" as they say ! But he does seem very intense, most of the time, in the diary. But I think everyone that has to deal with the public on that level has a public, and a separate, private persona. I think that he of all people would agree with me on that one. He's more or less said it in his writings
I wonder how I would behave if I was suddenly cast into the limelight, and had the money to fund anything that I wanted to do ? I would definitely see the world differently to how I see it now. This has already happened to me on a smaller scale, my financial situation has changed beyond recognition in a positive way, and I can't think the way I used to think about things anymore, it's very strange, the whole scale of what's available to you changes, it is very difficult to handle, and I'm having trouble with it right now.
But getting back to the above, I think we all change drastically as we get older, and our tastes in music/culture in general change, I know mine has, and you see things that you've never noticed before, and other things become less important to you.

What do I do Brian ? my business failed, my wife left me, I lost all my money, my best friend committed suicide, and my music has been a dreadful waste of my time and my life ? what should I do now Brian......come on.....you seem to know the answer to just about everything else.

OK. So we hate in others how we behave ourselves, that's the essence of this video ?

OOoooer

Patchmouse.

I'm not sure where the hate comes in. Eno was poking fun at himself in the video. I sprinkle self-deprecating humor throughout my presentations to my students.

The original post seems to be the only one with any animosity towards Brian Eno. My favorite musician was probably Miles Davis, but I certainly wouldn't put him up on a pedestal or model myself after him. He did interesting things with music. The rest of it does not affect me, and of course, in the case of Miles, he's dead._________________When the stream is deep
my wild little dog frolics,
when shallow, she drinks.

The essence of the video is basically humour. No real message there of any sort.. apart from Brian Eno demonstrating that he can be funny.. even when he tries to be. _________________A Charity Pantomime in aid of Paranoid Schizophrenics descended into chaos yesterday when someone shouted, "He's behind you!"

I don't know what planet I was on when I posted this thread, obviously not a good one !
Eno has to be one of the biggest influences on my life, not just my music, my life. I also met him, he is very nice, no side to him. I worked on a project that he was involved in "Self Storage" it was heaven working there, I just didn't want it to to end. Although, I think Eno would say differently !

Humans make lousy gods. Being human, they must disappoint you eventually. On the other hand, one can only be disappointed by a person if one had unrealistic expectations about that person. And don't we all make that mistake?

That baloney said, synth-wise I most respect Isao Tomita and Larry Fast. And Larry disappointed me. His first Synergy album was life-changing for me. The second was a weaker version of the first. Successive albums saw Fast increasingly relying on sequencers instead of composing and hand-playing synth music.

Tomita didn't disappoint me, although most of his work didn't particularly move me. For "Snowflakes Are Dancing" and "The Planets" I will revere him forever.

I've come to include Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo) with the two above, although his vision for synth music was very different.

I'd have to say I'm most influenced by Fast, and more specifically by his first album. In fact, there's a multi-layered part in the very first tune that's practically a blueprint of AEJOTZ music._________________AEJOTZ is pronounced "A-Jotz"
retro-futurism now
electronics = magic
free albums at http://aejotz.bandcamp.com
listen to genre-defying synthetic music at http://sat-5.com

Well your musical heroes never always meet up with your expectations... Not related to electronic music (unless Metal Machine Music counts of course!) but Lou Reed was always my biggest musical hero (a God though? Maybe not...) but anybody would have to admit he wasn't the greatest personality. Same thing with Miles Davis and tons of others I could name.

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forumYou cannot attach files in this forumYou can download files in this forum

Please support our site. If you click through and buy from our affiliate partners, we earn a small commission.